Release meeting notes 2021-03-03

Development Releases
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  • In the previous release meeting, we wanted to brainstorm about how we can have Foreman and Katello releases on time. Below are words of experience from @ekohl and @tbrisker ,

    • @jjeffers , updates on the current status of the process:

      • The Katello release process needs some time to get mature, as there are changes in the rotation of the release owner.
      • It’s not a good idea to have one person looking at releases every-time.
      • There should be rotations or someone who always looks into nightly pipeline failures. As of now, @Justin_Sherrill handles it but it should be rotated. This will make sure pipelines don’t be in a failed state for a longer time.
      • Agreed to write down ideas and improve the process by continuously taking the feedback.

    • @ekohl, improvement suggestions,

      • Emphasis on checklist similar to what we have for Foreman. The checklist needs updates from time to time with changes in the process.
      • The checklist ensures we don’t skip so much obvious and sometimes important steps.
      • The Katello should do releases often as there is no such moment where we actually fix everything. Therefore we should avoid having one release with all the fixes.
      • The nightly pipelines help to know the health of the project, and we should have a focus on keeping nightlies green and don’t let them in a failed state.
      • Nightly should be as close as a stable release. Considering Katello has healthy test coverage this is possible to achieve.
      • The discourse has dedicated ‘Infra and CI’ category, it’s good to have eyes on this and if possible have rotation to fix the failures.
      • Nightlies pipelines should be green before stabilization week. The Foreman has learned it the hard way, failing to do this has caused delays in releases.

    • @tbrisker, improvement suggestion,

      • The installer changes required for Katello should get into modules before stabilization week. The installer modules are released one week before stabilization week hence better to get all changes merged before two weeks of stabilization. Foreman schedule for example, Foreman 2.3 Branching Process.

Foreman:
2.4 GA or RC3 decision?

  • The EL8 has PostgreSQL 10 version and EL7 has PostgreSQL 12 version. The Issue 31834 is to use PostgreSQL 12 on EL8 to align it with EL7 PostgreSQL version. There is no upgrade path from PostgreSQL 10 to 12 and so installation may break. Considering this RC3 is planned for 9th March 2021.

Katello:
4.0 RC3:

  • Documentation changes are work in progress and based on Foreman 2.4 RC3 next Katello 4.0 RC3 will be planned.
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For those who like to click: Infra & CI - TheForeman

Another thing that we discussed was problems with rotations. When one person works on it in week x, the other person working in week y may miss things. I suggested that we should keep sufficient information in Releases - TheForeman that if you follow the category, you generally know what’s going on. Important notes from the release meetings should be enough. This should also provide the most transparency for people who are interested in our releases process.

Another example of something that was missed is:

It looks like this is missing from https://github.com/theforeman/tool_belt/blob/master/procedures/katello/branch.md.erb.

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